There are dirty deeds to be done. Like eating birthday cake. So they cover the kitchen table with a bright green plastic tablecloth and then your mommy insists that you change out of your beautiful birthday outfit into something that can get dirty.
Like your new AC/DC t-shirt!
M & I got it for her at Target in the little girl's section.
Love love love love you, little girl.
These blooms, I don't know what they are. Throughout the spring summer and fall they draw creatures from far and wide; wasps, bumble bees, bottle flies, mosquitos, yellow jackets. Stray cats. Me.
The black insect, it looked like a tarantula hawk, but with blue iridescent wings instead of red.
The bushes from which they bloom are near my door. I see them every day. I hear them buzzing, I feel them teaming from the periphery, even when I come home late into the night.
In the twilight I I took these pictures, I positioned myself as closely as I could.
Each time I got near, the orange wasps (which I couldn't capture; they were monstrous and intensely colored) and the black wasps (?) chased me away from their prize.
I don't believe in omens and oracles and I have not invested much of my energy in superstitions. But I do believe our world is complex enough that, often, we have to tune out many things we see just to keep functioning. We have selective vision, and selective blindness.
Life is all around and between and in us, its power and presence. I love to be out in it, nature. I look at my pictures over the past few days and I think there may be a reason that I am seeing so many related things... of wings. I think maybe this was a nudge from the unconcious part of me.
That part of me that lives behind my eyes, blinding me, or allowing me to see. The part of me that wraps me up tight to get me through. The same part of me that gently reminds me to keep untying the knots.
On my walk on Saturday afternoon, I noticed three robin's eggs on the ground. Two looked perfect; one was broken and seemed to be empty except for some goo.
My mother had always told me never to touch a bird's egg or nest - because the mother may not return if she detected a strange scent on the eggs/young.
Because the air was cooling as sun was going down, I didn't feel like I had time to make a decision. I put the two eggs back in the nest. I took the broken egg with me so I could wash the pieces, in hopes of taking photos or gluing it back together.
I began to rinse the egg shell pieces in a fine silver colander. I gently rocked the fragments under the stream of lukewarm water, and as some of the goo washed away, I saw the form of a tiny bird embryo emerge. The only reason I noticed it among the goo was because IT MOVED. And its tiny little red heart was still beating.
That sent a shock through me. The tiny embryo seemed impossibly small, the heart so big, the fact that it could still be beating: awe inspiring.
I quickly called a friend (bird expert - my old neighbor in Ithaca) who said the embryo had no chance of surviving. I asked her what she would do. She instructed me to make a cut, and where to make it. And then she told me to put the embryo and shell pieces back.
My friend told me that this was part of the natural cycle of life.
I am more at peace with the experience now. But when it was unfolding, I felt horror at having to take steps that made me responsible for this little bird's life, and death. Not that I could have done differently and somehow saved its life. I couldn't.
I don't want to use my experience with this little creature as a symbol for my own internal "stuff".
However, I've experienced some things in the past that I haven't fully processed yet, and this event was similar in certain defining aspects. This moment chafed at the unprocessed, unexpressed formlessness of the events past.
In the past, I've been too hurt to feel this when it happens. When I start to see things that speak to me, I shut myself down. I was able to tune out and keep myself together (at least in appearances). This is how I stayed grounded. Bound to the ground.
Now I realize it: I'm actually standing, walking, unbound. A little confused to be sure, but unbound nonetheless.
- - - -
For the non-squeamish, a picture of the discovered embryo below.
but the nap-time cam is certainly fond of chou-chou
Just look at that little nose and those sweet rows of brown dots on his cheeks and chin.
Yeah. We pay him to look cute.
Just think, while you are working today, Raymond is at home on his favorite patchwork quilt, looking cute and napping.
Happy Monday, Everyone.
What are you doing today? What would you rather be doing?
Darling, look into my eyes.
Resistance is futile.
I'm looking forward to having the next couple of days off of work. My first days off in over a month. I am turning off my blackberry. I won't be surfing the web. I won't be answering the phone.
I may or may not type up some things that have been floating around in my head of late, in the wee hours of the night.
chou-chou and I look out the window together every morning, on mornings when I am home. I think I would like it if the only thing I heard all weekend was the sound of her and Raymond purring.
I want rest and regrouping and rejuvenation. And more clarity.
Tell me what you want from the next few days of your life.
Sunrise & frost
Neither rain nor snow, nor sleet nor dark of night...
Nor Typepad being down for days, nor work deadlines, nor Christmas shopping, nor Flickr addictions, nor power outages, nor Strep Throat, nor cellular-level metamorphoses in my heart, nor things I see and hear that leave me lost in thought and speechless, nor Important Things I Need To Write Which I am Not Sure How To Write ...shall keep me from my appointed rounds. Ok, who the hell am I kidding?
I have been waylaid at times, and at other times flat out in one way or another, and in so many ways, feeling a change, in so many ways reverent.
I am humbled by the world right now, inspired by people and the things I see, and lost in thought at times, or lost in the experience of just being. Well, not lost exactly, but regenerating. All my energy is focused on regeneration I think.
I am very thankful for your wonderful comments, especially on the Holocaust Memorial post recently. The gift of the raspberry touched me, and your words rewarded me. The gift of the raspberry I passed around and was passed back to me again in other forms.
Soon, hopefully later tonight, I will have something I can begin to write. I am not sure how to put it all into words, it's a jumble, it's big, and it's slippery while still being something basic, something at the core, something essential.
How's that for a ridiculous build-up that had better not prevent me from opening the jar?
- - - -
One thing I haven't stopped doing is uploading to flickr. Though I don't intend on a having dry spell again here anytime soon, if you ever want to see what I am seeing, go here. It's also linked down there on the right >> My Most Recent Pics
Or check out My Favorite Pics By Other Flickr'ers
This morning, this is what I saw:
Raymond in the sunrise. I have had about 20 requests to provide Raymond for stud service in the last month. He has no, umm, studs. So he won't be doing that. But he will continue to look gorgeous and tease tabby cat lovers everywhere.
Raymond is M's cat, officially-speaking. If you think he is proud of Raymond's, umm, popularity... Well, WHY YES, yes, he is.
Some red berries I brought home the other day. I am in love with the color.
Updated: Because chou-chou has a fan club, too. This is for Jessie, Bucky, Danielle & (of course) Amanda B
chou-chou and her Morning What The Fuck!? Face. She only holds still for about two seconds every morning, so I was lucky to get this shot.
It's snowing like a mutha outside.
But don't panic, anyone. Raymond and chou-chou have it all under control. They're at their posts in the Feline Snowstorm Command Center.
Here's their view out the window on the left:
And their view out the window on the right:
WAIT!!! What is that sound?
YIKES! Is that a monster we hear coming for us?!
Ohhhhhhhh. Whew. Ray says it's ok, just a snowplow.
BUT... now Ray's thinking he can't remember approving their application to plow HIS street.
Happy Friday.
